


Point Blank

by parcequelle



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Episode: s05e09 Thirty Days, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-26
Updated: 2017-06-26
Packaged: 2018-11-19 09:28:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11310528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/parcequelle/pseuds/parcequelle
Summary: On day fourteen of the solitary confinement, she gives in.





	Point Blank

She sentences him to thirty days and doesn’t sleep. The first night, she is livid, blood prickling betrayal as she sits up for hours, trying to read, before she sighs, changes clothes, and heads to the holodeck. She’s banked up so much time that she just walks in to the nearest vacant one, and she thinks, mouth twisting wry, that using it up might at least get the Doctor off her back for a while. She plays tennis against a particularly obnoxious holographic Romulan who smirks at her from the other side of the net whenever she misses a shot. Weak-elbowed and sore, she returns in time to stand a weary few minutes in the curling embrace of the sonic shower before she dresses and stalks to the bridge, armed with coffee and a look that dares anyone to ask her why she’s turned up for her shift three hours early.

There is nothing there to distract her, nothing but the void of space and a scattered confetti of stars, flying past her at warp seven-point-two. A restless half hour passes before she hands the bridge over to Tuvok and begs paperwork as an excuse to flee to the ready room. There, she replicates a (third) cup of coffee and wrenches her eyes shut against the onslaught of her thoughts, against the high-resolution memory of Tom on the sofa laughing, discussing Jules Verne, sipping tea with fingers that had surprised her in their elegance. She sees Tom furrowing his brow, mannerisms unknowingly reflective of his father. She thinks of Tom on that first day in New Zealand, immature and cocky, his eyes roaming her body with undisguised, disrespectful appreciation. She thinks of how he’s changed, since then; she thinks of how, change aside, that opening interaction shattered any hope of her ever seeing him as a protégé.

She looks out the window and follows and loses the stars, and her coffee goes cold.

*

She almost makes it to halfway, head down, mind by turns blank and bright-hot, and on day fourteen of the solitary confinement, she gives in.

She makes a point of accidentally running into Neelix just as he’s leaving the mess hall with Tom’s tray; she makes a point of visibly weighing her options before she nods her head once and says briskly, all business, ‘I’ll take it to him, Mr Neelix.’

She makes a point of using the tone and the eyes that warn him not to argue, and Neelix, shrewder than most and closer than many, wisely elects to let her go.

Tom doesn’t look up when she enters. He is sitting in one corner of the cell, pressed in a line parallel to the wall, engrossed in a PADD that Kathryn pretends she doesn’t notice. _Harry Kim_ , she thinks, reproachful even within the confines of her skull. She makes a mental note to remind Ensign Kim of the principle of solitary confinement, then recognises exactly where she is right now, exactly what’s she doing, and changes her mind.

It is only when she acknowledges the presence of the officer on watch with a quiet, ‘As you were,’ that Tom seems to realise she isn’t Neelix, and he raises his eyes to hers in slow motion, hesitant, as though he can’t be sure she’s really there.

‘Mister Paris,’ she says, by way of greeting. The force-field sizzles out of existence and she passes him the tray. Tom reaches out to take it from her and their fingers brush; it is reflex or maybe something else that prompts the sudden retraction of her hand, the sudden defensive straightening of her spine.

Kathryn slides her gaze away from his and silence reigns, weighty as it compresses the air between them, artificial gravity and regulated oxygen; invisible necessities, inevitable truths. Tom watches her and seems to understand that this time, the duty falls to him to break the tension.

‘Two visitors in twelve hours?’ he quips. ‘Geez, Captain, you must really miss me.’ He regrets his flippancy immediately, she can tell, and she has just turned on her heel to walk out when his voice stops her, softer this time. ‘Sorry,’ it says. ‘Two weeks of solitary confinement and my people skills are starting to suffer.’

There is a moment where the silence returns, then Kathryn glances at the stony-faced security offer at his console and says, ‘You’re dismissed, Crewman.’

They wait until he’s gone, the doors swished open and closed on charged air, and then Tom says, ‘I’m surprised to see you here, Captain. Solitary confinement and all.’

‘I can’t help but notice your reading material,’ she says in response, in lieu of something waspish. She will give him one more chance before she leaves.

He seems to comprehend this unspoken truth and his eyes soften, blue-grey. They look almost like an apology. ‘Neelix, uh, brought me some stuff down the other day. From Harry.’

‘Is it fiction?’ she asks.

‘No.’ He chuckles humourlessly. ‘Actually, it’s—it’s schematics. Tech specs. I’ve been thinking up some improvements for…’ he trails off, doesn’t need to say _for the Flyer_.

Awkwardness weaves its way between them, slips through the force field as though it isn’t there. Are they going to talk about this elephant, Kathryn wonders? Is that the way to move forward? Address it, clear the air, pave the way for Tom’s return to his duties? Is she far enough beyond her anger to want to do that?

Neutral it is. ‘An admirable use of time,’ she says.

‘What can I say? The conversation in here got stale pretty fast.’

It is a stupid quip worthy of Tom on a less self-destructive day, and she allows him half a smile. ‘I can imagine,’ she says.

‘How are—’ he clears his throat, hesitant in a way she doesn’t associate with him. ‘How are you, Captain?’

None of the words that come to mind are appropriate to share with a subordinate, let alone one in his current position. She nods once and says, ‘I’m fine.’

He snorts. ‘That why you’re visiting your prisoner at 0100?’

‘Don’t push it, Mister Paris.’

He looks vaguely chastised but doesn’t apologise. He is infuriating, disrespectful, insolent – and yet she believes, all the same, that he has learnt his lesson. That he will. That sentencing him to brig time was the right decision.

For reasons explicable only by the dim light and quiet around them, she hears herself asking, ‘Are you sleeping?’

He looks like he wants to ask her the same, but just shrugs. ‘Well enough. This bench sure as hell beats the bunk back in the penal colony.’ He thinks a moment. ‘The food could be better, though. Maybe you could have a word to the chef.’

‘Oh, no,’ she deadpans. ‘That wouldn’t be right. The food is part of the punishment.’

‘Then you are a cruel, cruel woman, Kathryn Janeway.’

The glaring impropriety of this statement is lessened somehow by the look in his eyes, the complex effect of vulnerability layered over guilt over remorse over a kind of desperate pride, and it is the reason Kathryn has always had to hold Tom’s gaze a little longer when he looks at her, smile a little quicker when he smiles. 

There are so many things she could say; she could dig a new hole; she could peer down at him from the crumbling edge of this one; she could just jump down into it with him. What she says is: ‘For what it’s worth, Tom’—

( _I do miss you_ )

—‘I’ll be glad to have my best pilot back.’

He crooks a smile at her, something inscrutable and secretive caught on the edge of his lip. ‘And I’ll be glad to be back.’

After a moment that lasts longer than a moment ought, Kathryn clears her throat and says, ‘Well then, I’ll wish you a goodnight, Lieu—Ensign,’ she says.

‘Back atcha, Captain,’ he says, saluting with the PADD he’s still holding. ‘Sweet dreams.’

‘Enjoy the food,’ she says sweetly, and he actually laughs.

She doesn’t turn back, but with every step back to her quarters she hears the faint rhythm of the words: _two weeks. Two weeks._

Maybe tonight she’ll get some rest.


End file.
